Sunday 29 June 2008
Meanwhile, in Gdynia...
Below: My parents-in-law (front row, centre) during the ceremony in the Błyskawica's officers' mess; my wife sits behind them. Three seats along from my mother-in-law is President Ryszard Kaczorowski, the last Polish president-in-exile, who in 1990 handed the insignia of state of the pre-war Polish republic to the newly-elected President Lech Wałęsa, thus preserving the continuity of Polish statehood across the 45-year period of communism. [Photographs: Marynarka Wojenna]
Saturday 28 June 2008
To Kazimierz, for a wedding
Kazimierz Dolny also happened to be playing host to an international folk music festival, so the charming town (heaving at its very seams at this time of year) was even more crowded than usual. Below: The view from the gate of the church of St John the Baptist.
Kazimierz has some unique architecture that makes it a real gem among smaller Polish towns; the tragedy is that there are not more like it. Germany, France, Italy, Spain - not to mention England - have thousands of truly beautiful villages and small towns. Can anyone helpfully point out some more in Poland worth spending some time in?
Right: Looking towards Kazimierz's main square. Behind me was the pensionat at which I stayed, Pod Wietrzną Górą, which I can recommend for excellent service, lovely rooms, good food, air conditioning and excellent shower units.
But avoid peak tourist times - just look at that traffic jam!
Friday 27 June 2008
Rain, wind and fire
It was raining; hard and this would eventually help the firemen put the fire out. Note in the photo above how the sparks spread the fire, setting off mini-fires in the foreground. Thunder and lightning accompanied the heavy downpour; it's possible that a lighting strike sparked the fire. I continued home in the hard driving rain.
Thursday 26 June 2008
Warmth of the Sun
Leaving Lublin at nine pm, the car thermometer indicated +24C. Even two hours after the sun had set, it was still +20C. The summer's here and the time is right for driving window-down while listening to the Beach Boys. Contrary to popular belief, Les Garcons de la Plage actually wrote more songs about cars (Little Deuce Coupe, Little GTO, Spirit of America, 409, etc.) than about surfing (Surfing USA, Catch a Wave, etc.) Much as I like their car songs, my fave Beach Boys numbers are their later, more reflective ones that reach a level of sublime emotion rarely encountered in pop music; Warmth of the Sun, Do it Again or Surf's Up (despite the title, not a surfing song). And I can turn up the car's stereo, harmonise with the Wilson brothers and imagine that the Yaris is a Ford three-window coupe with whitewall slicks that'll turn a quarter mile in one-oh-six. Of course, back in the mid-'60s, it was quite OK to glorify cars with seven litre engines running on leaded petrol that did 12 miles to a gallon, which cost all of 32 cents.
This time last year:
The Road beckons
Ul. Nawłocka gets a hardened surface
Pigeon tumbling in Jeziorki
Return to Lublin
This time last year: The perfect rainbow over Jeziorki
Wednesday 25 June 2008
Nice Nysa
This time last year:
Crops in the field next door are growing high
Tuesday 24 June 2008
Crumbling neo-classicism in Grabów
So here we have on the corner of ul. Krasnowolska and ul. Tramblanki a 150 year old neo-classical dworek (manor house). In a right two-and-eight*, it seems to be still inhabited. We are just six miles from the very centre of Warsaw. (Google Earthers - we're looking at 52° 8'32.25"N, 20°59'58.21"E).
Who lives here and what's likely to become of this slice of local history is unknown to me; I hope it get sold to a culturally-sensitive person with the wealth and taste to return this dworek to its former glory.
This time last year:
Off into Mazowsze by bike
*Cockney rhyming slang. "Two and eight" = "state".
Monday 23 June 2008
This, I think, is quintessential Jeziorki
This time last year:
Development starts encroaching - Mysiadło boxes (field across the track now being developed)
Communist ice cream
So we're back in communist days, except for the cars in the background, a plethora of Peugeots, BMWs, Mazdas, Fords and Mitsubishis when 25 years ago, you'd have been lucky to have seen a handful of Polski Fiats parked here.
Does the State have any business selling ice cream?
UPDATE, SUMMER 2009: It's gone. Knocked down as Al. Ujazdowskie were being given a major facelift. History, man.
Sunday 22 June 2008
New coal train en route to Okęcie
Stratotanker's Sunday visits to Okęcie
Incidentally, the Boeing 707 and its military equivalent, the KC-135 is one of five aircraft to have served a full half-century in the same air force. The others are the English Electric/BAC Canberra, Boeing B-52, Tupolev Tu-20/95 'Bear' and the Lockheed C-130 Hercules.
The plane is a tanker conversion of a cargo Boeing 707 operated by the Israeli Air Force. Click here for photo. We saw it today (Sunday 13 July at 09:13) flying in from the south. Below: Flying in on Sunday 2 November at 09:41.
Noc Świętojańska - St John's Eve
Saturday 21 June 2008
In the solstice garden
The meaning of Solstice
Note on Tim Osborn's map (above) the sinusoidal shape of daylight across the globe. North of the Arctic Circle, there's 24 hours of sunlight; the Antarctic is currently experiencing endless night, with a twilight fringe brushing the continent's northern coast. Note also the position of the sun, scooting around the Tropic of Cancer. Soon it will start dropping towards the Equator again, which it will cross during the Autumn Equinox (22 September), en route to the Tropic of Capricorn, which it will reach by the Winter Solstice (21 December).
Below: Compare the shape of daylight today with how it looked at the moment of the Spring Equinox just three months ago. They sinusoid gives way to two neat rectangles; 12 hours of day, 12 hours of night across the whole world, wherever you are; the sun over the Equator.
Just one of those many things that makes me ponder about how extremely fortunate mankind has been in finding itself on Planet Earth. It is a tilted planet, whose axis is 23 degrees off vertical in relation to our local star gives us seasons.
One final thing: School's out for summer. Ten weeks before Moni and Eddie go back to the classroom. Moni starts high school (liceum), Eddie middle school (gimnazjum).
This time last year:
The Crumfel's first gig (though Moni had not yet thought up the band's name)
Thursday 19 June 2008
Jeziorki midsummer evening scenes
On ul. Kórnicka, less than eight miles from the very centre of Warsaw, is this entirely rural scene. A shotgun shack in ol' Kentucky? Sure looks familiar to me. I'd love to buy this place, do it up a bit, but essentially preserve its country character. Why, there's even a well for drawing water. As I walked home, I ponder on this scene, and the following phrase pops unbidden into my mind: "There is a seamless continuum which our souls observe through myriad eyes". We live, we learn, we die, we are reborn; it must happen many times.
Double exposure on ul. Baletowa. "What's he taking a picture of?" That beautifully illuminated old house, with bed covers and laundry out to dry, that's what. The old architecture of Jeziorki gives the place so much atmosphere, long may it withstand the ravishes of Development.
Antonov An-12 inbound to land
Wednesday 18 June 2008
God Save The Queen - I mean it, Ma'am!
Sunday 15 June 2008
Twilight moods, Jeziorki
Right: the colour of a summer sky, half an hour after sunset. The beauty and the temporary sadness. The sun's gone out, but will be back.
This time last year:
The year approaches its zenith
I no longer recognise the land where I was born
"Compared to us, [our teenage children and their friends] have so much more to do and experience...
1970s cinema: Pay up, see a great movie, leave. Wait four years for it to appear on telly or to turn up at the NFT in a scratched old print, or at Uni as a mutilated 16mm print.
2000s cinema: See a great movie, make a tribute video on YouTube, discuss it on Facebook, see it again on DVD with surround sound (have your own film festival if you want), watch it on your iPod on the train.
1970s Sundays: Zilch open, nothing to do except watch the Big Match or go to the pub
2000s Sundays: Everything's open, like a bonus day to your weekend
1970s violence: Skinheads outside school, Paki-bashing, football specials, me getting beaten up at Stamford Bridge.
2000s violence: Mainly confined to gangs from estates knifing each other.
1970s music: NME on a Thursday to find out what's going on. Wait for a band you like to get signed, then wait another three months for a "single release", by which time the buzz is over.
2000s music: Pick up the buzz about a band, download the tracks from MySpace, see them play at about a gazillion festivals all over the UK or Europe, chat to them online.
1970s travel: Dream of being able to get a railcard to Europe or save up for years for an extortionate airfare.
2000s travel: Go to Norway, Amsterdam, Serbia, etc. for festivals or weekend trips for tickets that cost pennies (tax excepted).
1970s London: Drab, decaying buildings in need of modernisation. Men in suits and bowler hats having terrible food in old, old restaurants. Wimpy Bar or The Egg and I the "last word" in cafe eating
2000s London: new design and style everywhere, every kind of food available, fresh, unusual, fun, you name it.
1970s dates: You call someone up, you make a date, you get there, they don't show up, the next day they call and apologise - the bus broke down
2000s dates: You get there, you get a call on your mobile, you laugh, you make new plan.
1970s pithy comment: Fanzines once a month.
2000s pithy comment: Blogs.
...and so on. Okay, I might be exaggerating, but my memories of growing up in 1970s Surrey was that it was all so DULL most of the time, and LIMITED in what you could hope to achieve."
I must say, I have the same kind of debate with my mother-in-law, who says she prefers the 1940s to these days. What - with the war and everything? Yes, with the war and everything (bombing of civilians, Nazi occupation, arbitrary arrests and street executions, genocide on your doorstep, death penalty for harbouring Jews, Warsaw Uprising, imprisonment in concentration camp), my mother-in-law still claims that life was better then.
Are we all destined to grow older thinking that everything today is rubbish? I must say though, it's difficult to see modern Poland as worse than it was in the 1970s (unless you're a hardline communist). Am I beginning to see a trend (reading Polish blogs) that the mid-2000s were Poland's Golden Age?
All comments invited.
Friday 13 June 2008
One night only: The Crumfel
I was down the front with the rest of the Camera Dads, all equipped with Nikon still and Sony video cameras. Behind me, the joint was indeed jumping.
One night only: Friday 13th June, 2008.
Thursday 12 June 2008
Automotive miscellany
The Warszawa 204 was a modernised version of the original FSO Warszawa, a licence-built Soviet GAZ M-20 Pobieda (the forerunner of the M-21 Volga that I used to own in 1980s London). The main change is visible in this rear three-quarter view; the fastback styling of the original has given way to a 'notch-back' and conventional boot.
More common on Poland's roads, though disappearing rapidly, is the FSC Żuk ('beetle') pick-up truck, photographed below in Zamienie on the road between Nowy Podolszyn and Zgorzała. Very much an icon of rural Poland. More than half a million were produced between 1958 and 1998. The Żuk has a most characteristic shape not seen on the roads of western Europe. It was also assembled in Egypt as the Ramses.
And a propos of old cars, our 15 year-old Nissan Micra hit a nice round figure - one hundred and eleven thousand, one hundred and eleven point one miles (below). Average mileage isn't that high, but for the past six years its barely ever ventured outside Warsaw's city limits. Fuel consumption is still excellent (42 mpg on last tankful), given the car sits in traffic jams much of the time (when it's not bounding up and down over the unasphalted ul. Poloneza). I believe the Nissan Micra K11 will too have iconic status. I do love my one for its character, reliability and willingness.
This time last year:
The weather was stormy (contrast with this year!)
Setting suns, south of Warsaw
Monday 9 June 2008
Bus blaze on way to town
Approaching, we could see that it was a bus on fire. I parked up a safe distance behind it, and grabbed as many shots as I could.
The scene looked like the immediate aftermath of a terrorist attack in Beirut, a communist era uprising or something from a war zone. The heat was intense - even standing at a safe distance. I could hear glass shattering. The billboard behind the bus also caught fire.
Notice the forelorn and rather useless fire extinguisher standing on the empty pavement. The first indication that the driver was OK. Interestingly, according to TVN24 reports, the PKS Piaseczno Ikarus bus was full of passengers - I could not see anyone around. I would have expected them to stand by curiously rather than to run a mile.
What happened to the bystanders? Apparently there were 30 people on the bus - not a sign of them. They must have been in an awful hurry to get to work. Or else illegal immigrants clearing off before the authorities turned up.
Firefighters arrived on the scene rapidly and the fire was out within three minutes of their arrival. Thankfully, the blaze happened when Puławska was still empty. Had the main artery into Warsaw from the south been clogged up with three lanes of stationary traffic - as would have been the case two hours later - the result could have been catastrophic. As it was, no casualties. A massive traffic jam snarled up approaches to Warsaw for several hours. Driving past the spot at 13:30, there was no sign of the conflagration - other than a melted Citylight billboard. Earlier, Moni witnessed the bus being towed away; she says she saw a driver actually at the steering wheel of the burnt-out shell! pożar autobus ul. Puławska WałbrzychskaAnother blazing bus pic on Gazeta Wyborcza's website. Below: a scan of the story, with my picture, on the front page of the Warsaw supplement to Poland's biggest-selling daily newspaper.
Rules for getting news photos into the media:
1) Ignore the 'post it for free' schemes such as Alert24. Yes, you get your photo published, but no, you don't get paid and you hand over all your rights to the image forever more.
2) Work fast. Get a sample, low-res image with an overprinted 'copyright: Your Name' watermark to the picture desks of your target media. If it's good, they'll reply swiftly.
3) If you've got a good pic, haggle. Remember, there's more than one picture editor out there.
4) ALWAYS have your camera with you!
This time last year:
Stormy evening, beautiful light
Giant dandelion clocks (not present this year!)